


Again Tonight

by Ori (magnetium)



Series: Again Tonight [1]
Category: True Blood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 05:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1001666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetium/pseuds/Ori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Godric is lost in thought tonight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Again Tonight

"Do you miss the sun?"

The young human's question is innocent, genuinely curious, but Godric finds himself tensing anyway. It's a question he's familiar with, one that he's been made to answer in various forms over the years. It's not uncommon for him to answer with a touch of irony, or even a poetical response about his deep love of the night, built quietly over the years in the arranged marriage between the moon and the vampires.

But tonight, all he says is, "No." He is in no mood to be pleasant this evening, to put the human at ease with an easily-digestible answer. It would be impossible to convey the reality to the boy, and to explain his relationship with the sun--or rather, his lack of one. This human wouldn't be able to fully grasp that the sun was never really Godric's in the first place, that one cannot feel the loss of something one has never possessed.

He strokes the boy's neck, soothing him back to silence, so that he is content again to lay against Godric, while the vampire takes tiny sips from him, just enough each time to produce the lovely, terrible pang of desire in his stomach.

Eric is watching him from the rug on the floor, bathed in the warm glow of the fireplace, his features alternately shrouded in shadow and illuminated with fierce clarity. It is possible he senses Godric's tenseness at the question, but he will not understand the reasons behind it. Godric knows that Eric _does_ miss the sun at times, when his mind returns to the bloody battlefields of his youth, and the bright, icy sunlight of his Nordic homeland. It would be difficult for him to understand Godric's past as well, so their conversations have never stayed on that topic long, led astray by Godric's clever subject changes.

How could he tell them--Eric and this fragile human--that the night seemed to have been his birthright, even from his first days? Born into a slavery that divorced him from the day as quickly as he was wed to it, he was never given the opportunity to play in the dust, under a hot, beating sun. His own mother had been owned by a vampire, one of many in the caves that housed that nest. He knows of her only what he was told by his masters: a tryst of some kind had produced him, and once he had grown enough to withstand it, he had become another source of blood for them, another slave to their desires. They had killed his mother for her disloyalty once they had broken her heart by taking him from her, a cruel act that Godric often wishes he could feel sorrow for. Sorrow or guilt is often hard to come by for him, a change that happens gradually for most vampires, but was a natural state for most of his human life. It was only in being given the gift of eternity by his masters that he found emotion still lurked within him, wild and raw. He has had a tendency toward extremes for most of his vampire existence.

It does sometimes amaze him, even now, to think of how tedious it must have been to have a human child in their nest. He remembers himself as a serious, passionate child, but he can't be sure how accurate those memories are, and he imagines that even the most serious of children are still tiresome to their guardians. That's why, he assumes now, he was turned so early, before his body had even been able to reach its full maturity. It is a wonder they didn't simply kill him long before then, although he knows he was partially protected from the attention of the others by his maker, the vampire that had owned his mother. Burned into his mind, and buried deep beneath layers of old pain, are the memories of the teeth on his neck, as the vampire drew from him each night, and the hands, as they made their cold way over him, and into him. Godric never struggled, until he was given the gift of the night, and was allowed to finally possess his own body. Then he had ended it. He would decide who could touch him now, and where.

The human sighs in his arms, turning to nestle closer, his eyes glassy and half-lidded. Godric strokes his hair absently, admiring the clean, bright lines of the boy's face, and his dark, curly hair, tied back with a ribbon in the fashion of men today. On an impulse, he reaches down and unties the ribbon, straightening it out and wrapping it around the boy's neck, then tying a little bow to fasten it there. It hides the bite marks perfectly, and gives the youth the look of a fresh-faced girl, with his tangled locks of hair and his silken collar.

"You're done," he murmurs in the boy's ear. "Go home."

The boy looks up at him, uncomprehending, until Godric sees a dawn of realisation in his eyes: he is being dismissed. Then comes the platitudes Godric has known are coming. The human puts his arms around Godric's neck, nuzzling him, begging to remain with them.

"I could stay," he says, offering something he doesn't even understand yet. "I could be yours."

"No, you couldn't be." He gently takes the arms from around his neck and replaces them at the boy's sides, then stands up and brings the youth with him. "You must go home. Come, Eric will escort you." At his words, Eric is beside the boy, leading him down the hallway. He glances back at Godric before they are out of view, his expression one of patient concern. Eric is impetuous in all things, but he has learned that his maker reveals things in his own time. Godric knows he has been distant all evening, felt the tendrils of worry from Eric: _did I do something?_ It may not even have escaped his notice that these episodes have been coming at the same time each year, every time the winter winds begin to blow outside, and the festivities begin in the human world for their pagan--now Christian--holiday.

He will soothe Eric as he did the boy when the younger vampire returns, stroking him to silence, until the questions die on his lips. There are no answers he is ready to part with yet. He walks to the large French windows in the study, watching the tiny pieces of whiteness fall onto the blanketed landscape behind the house, and wonders how long it will take, and how many centuries must pass, before he forgets his human inception, and can leave his birthday behind him.


End file.
